China suffered its first ever annual smartphone decline, with shipments down 4% from 2016 to 459 million units in 2017, Canalys research indicates. This drop was partly due to China having one of its worst year-on-year performances in Q4 2017, with shipments plummeting by over 14% to just under 113 million units. Huawei grew shipments by 9% against the overall market decline, shipping more than 24 million smartphones and staying on top. Shipments fell for both Oppo and Vivo, by…

India’s smartphone market has finally seen a change at the top, with Chinese vendor Xiaomi now leading with shipments close to 8.2 million units in Q4 2017, according to research firm Canalys. Despite annual growth of 17%, South Korea’s Samsung failed to maintain its lead, shipping just over 7.3 million smartphones to take second place. The smartphone market in India grew by a modest 6% overall, in line with Canalys forecasts, following the seasonal dip as vendors and channel partners…

Chinese smartphone brands continue to grow in Bangladesh and now capture 29 percent of the market, up from 13 percent a year ago, according to Counterpoint Research. In Q3 2017, Chinese smartphone brands grew 125 percent year-on-year in the South Asian nation. “Chinese brands have been aggressively expanding in the Bangladesh smartphone market with low-cost offerings. Major Chinese brands like Huawei, iTel, Xiaomi and OPPO have already started to make their presence felt by grabbing market share from local brands,”…

Chinese smartphone maker Huawei is working on producing a foldable smartphone, Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said in a recent interview. The foldable smartphone could be available as soon as next year, the CEO said. Huawei’s South Korean rival, Samsung, also confirmed that it’s working on a similar foldable product. Huawei isn’t ready to launch a foldable device just yet, but the company is playing around with the idea, Mr. Yu recently told CNET. “We have two…

Premium segment smartphones (US$400 wholesale price) generated almost 80 percent of the global handset profit during Q2 2017, according to Counterpoint Research. Apple dominated the premium segment where profit margins are high as most of its profits come from above US$400 models. Counterpoint Research estimates that the latest Apple iPhone X will further increase profits for the California-based iPhone maker in the premium segment and overall to record levels. Within its individual portfolio, for Samsung, the US$400+ segment contributed almost…

Huawei has unveiled its first smartphones fitted with its first AI mobile chipset, the Kirin 970. The Huawei Mate 10, Huawei Mate 10 Pro and Porsche Design Huawei Mate 10 were unveiled in Munich on October 16, and combine the Kirin 970 chipset and EMUI 8.0 Android interface. The Mate 10 Series continues its legacy of long-lasting battery life, while integrating New Leica Dual Camera technology. With an all-new FullView Display, the Huawei Mate 10 features a 5.9-inch screen with…

ASUS chief executive, Jerry Shen, said “always-connected PC” will soon be a reality at Qualcomm’s 4G/5G Summit in Hong Kong on October 17. He said the company is always in search of new ideas and user experiences, and is currently looking to attract customers to the new category of always-connected personal computers. “We are looking forward to bringing this new category of always-connected PCs,” said Mr. Shen speaking at the event. “More and more, consumers are turning to mobile technology…

BlackBerry officially announced its new smartphone called BlackBerry Motion featuring a 5.5-inch 1080p LCD display and no physical keyboard – a surprising move for the company that has built its character on having phones that have a keyboard. The device is notably IP67-certified meaning it is dust and water resistant. The phone comes packed with a Snapdragon 625 chipset with 4GB of RAM, 32GB of built-in storage and a 4,000mAh battery. The chipset is known to be power efficient, so…

Samsung Electronics announced that Vice Chairman Oh-Hyun Kwon plans to resign as the company’s head of the Device Solutions Business and will not seek re-election as a member of the Board of Directors and the Chairman of the Board when his term ends in March, 2018. Vice Chairman Kwon will also resign as the Chief Executive Officer of Samsung Display. In an emotional letter sent to all employees, Vice Chairman Kwon said that announcing his retirement was the most difficult…

Alphabet-owned Google unveiled the Pixel 2 smartphone in two models on Oct. 4, along with a new family of hardware products such as Google Pixel Buds (wireless headphones). The Pixel 2 is the first smartphone built with an eSIM, an embedded SIM that lets you instantly connect to a carrier network. It also features a high-end camera, all-day battery life, and an improved Assistant. As long as you’re a Project Fi subscriber, Google will use the devices’ built-in eSIMs to…

Apple appears to be facing a setback in China after a Financial Times survey revealed that smartphone buyers in the country are choosing domestic brands over California-based Apple iPhone products, with Huawei being their first choice. Huawei has the top spot, according to the survey, with 31.4 percent of respondents opting for the brand. The report said, “The proportion of people saying they would buy an iPhone as their next phone dropped to 24.2 percent in September, compared with 25.8…

Q2 growth for tablets and business smartphones was up slightly this year, as the market shows signs of a rebound, according to research by Strategy Analytics. Business smartphone shipments grew 14.8 percent year-on-year to reach 107.1 million units in Q2, up 6.1 percent sequentially from Q1. Tablets reached 17.3 million units in Q2, up 7.5 percent from Q1. While Q2 2017 showed signs of an increase on a slower first quarter, suggesting signs of an improvement for the remainder…